Friday, June 24, 2011

Petition: Support National Institute for the study of Dutch slavery and its legacy (NiNsee)

Sign PetitionAs of January 2013, there is a good chance that the National Institute for the study of Dutch slavery and its legacy (NiNsee) will no longer be subsidized by the the Ministry of Education, Research and Science. On Monday, June 27th, the State Secretary Halbe Zijlstra will discuss plans to discontinue the subsidy within the Tweede Kamer (House of Commons).

If these plans go through, it represents the end for NiNsee. This would be disastrous as the slavery past concerns us all. Without NiNsee:

- The only knowledge institute concerned with trans-Atlantic slavery in Holland will cease to exist.- The impact of the Dutch slavery past on Dutch society, will rarely be discussed nationally or internationally.

- The national slavery monument in Amsterdam's Oosterpark, which is inextricably linked to NiNsee, will become an empty gesture.

- Our shared history will no longer be commemorated on a national level. In this respect, and in the eyes of the Council of Culture, NiNsee can be compared to the Dutch Institute for War Documentation (NIOD). The significant role that NIOD plays in the memorialization and understanding of the Second World War, is performed by NiNsee for the much longer period of the slavery past.

- The Dutch slavery past will barely be represented in an accessible way, as it is now via publications, exhibitions and teaching packages. Because of this, knowledge will be concealed from the larger public and the next generation of Dutch people, with the disastrous consequence that the voices of our ancestors will gradually disappear from our collective memory.

- In the "new" Netherlands that this cabinet envisions, the Dutch slavery past will be completely erased from our memory.

- Many Caribbean and Afro Dutch people will again experience alienation within Dutch society.

The only institute that is concerned with the Dutch slavery past and its legacy will not be dismantled in such a careless fashion. Sign the petition to prevent the loss of knowledge and legacy.